83 Seca not starting

[WFox93]

Just like the title says my newly acquired seca is not starting. My dad and I had just finished cleaning up the carbs and doing other necessary work to get this bike safe and legal to ride when we went for the all important test fire when we were greeted by a sound best compared to blending only ice cubes.

TL;DR When I try to start my Seca the starter spins but there is a terrible metal grinding noise, sounds like I'm blending ice cubes. Upon pulling the starter the teeth on that gear were rounded off a bit so it is spinning just fine.

from the research I've gathered it would seem that the issue is with the starter clutch or possibly the drive idle gear. I was hoping to gather some insight on what it could be specifically and what it would take to repair.

and since I don't believe in posting without any pictures, here ya go,(its unrelated but oh well)

 

[WFox93]

I'm gonna bump this thread rather than starting a new one since the issue is somewhat related.

Finally got everything back together, it turned out to be an issue where the starter clutch rotor was cracked, replaced it, test cranked the motor on the bench and it cranked no problem.

Got the engine back on the bike and everything hooked up. go for a test fire and we are greeted with backfiring and the occasional flame out of the exhaust. first thought is timing, however we didn't touch anything timing related in the starter clutch work.

The bike was running just fine before this work (just had to bump start it). What could be the problem here? Thank you in advance for any help and I do apologize for writing these novels.

 

[BBS360]

I think your first thought is probably on the right track. You had the whole case apart, including the timing chain.
I'm not familiar with the DOHC cam timing but on the SOHC models it doesn't take much to reassemble things 180 degrees out.

Took me quite a while to figure out that mistake on my bike....

 

[WFox93]

Well we only had the bottom part of the casing apart but now that you say the whole thing could easily be 180 degrees out that does make sense as my first thought was "maybe the plug wires ended up on the wrong sides when the engine was out. I'll have to investigate the timing theory in more detail when both my dad and I have more patience with it. Right now both of us are ready to kick the thing off a cliff. Not a doubt in my mind we won't get it running right though. Can't wait til spring when I can really start riding this thing.

 

[16VGTIDave]

Try switching the spark plug wires. Easy to put them on the wrong cylinders...

 

[WFox93]

Yeah like I had mentioned, that was my first thought ... Wasn't that simple. Or atleast per my dad it wasn't. I was at work while he was working on it. He supposedly tried that. I may need to go and try it again just to be sure.

 

[BBS360]

The swap would work if it were the ignition coils that were backwards but I think if the timing cam is 180 out swapping the plug wires still lands the spark on the wrong part of the four-stroke cycle.
Swapping the wires did nothing for me. Fortunately it was the external timing cam that was out, not the cam shafts itself.

 

[WFox93]

Welp,

After spending a few hours doing top-end timing today it still doesn't start. Just sits there and cranks and cranks. it is sparking and we resorted to pouring a small bit of fuel in the cylinders to try and get it to fire. Things aren't looking good for this bike. The only thing I can think of is compression (which sounds fine, you hear it pumping through the exhaust) or the timing is now 180 degrees out. There was no "T" mark but there was an open circle that we timed it off of. The first time we saw the circle the timing dots on the cams were not visible so we cranked it around again and then the dots were there. Any thoughts on this???